78 Replies - 6350 Views - Last Post: 07 October 2012 - 12:49 PM

Re: Apple or Android?

Posted 19 September 2012 - 12:41 PM

Really? That's a bit troubling. The glass can only do so much if the tech isn't there regarding the sensor. The f/2.0 aperture is what had my interest piqued. The 4s and 5 use f/2.4 lenses, and while .4 might not seem like much, a half-stop really can be noticeable in low-light situations. How do you like the phone in general?

Re: Apple or Android?

I hope the camera is as good as it sounds, because I have the Lumia 900. It has some fancy Carl Zeiss equipment too, but the photos are "good enough", not amazing. The 4S takes better pics.

But I really am looking forward to the 920. I hope it's competitively priced (for an out-of-band upgrade).

My 800 takes amazing photos, very rarely.

That is however, no fault of the camera/phones I shake like a bitch and so the viewfinder is perfect, the end result however is not!

Phone itself though is amazing of course. I had the very first WinPho device (HD7) from the day it was released and haven't looked back to my Android ever since (despite girlfriend trying to convert me back with her OneX and Nexus 7 shit).

Re: Apple or Android?

Posted 19 September 2012 - 12:50 PM

It's a well-built phone, without a doubt. The polycarbonate is a great choice for an enclosure. It's not glossy, so it doesn't scratch up much, and it's quite solid. The glass hasn't scratched (though it does get greasy). The phone itself is great. The real question is: how is W7P as an OS? Good, but lacking at the moment. Great at some things (like the social aspects, the way you can get updates about groups of contacts that are pinned to the homepage). The UI is very well designed, and it is smooth as butter (as opposed to Google's Project Butter, which can still be stuttery sometimes).

But the app store is the problem. There are a lot of apps out there, but not many of the quality you see on the iPhone, and even Android. Which is a shame, because the dev kit is so much better than either of the other platforms. The issue so far has been the single-core phones; you don't see the games because it can't run them. This problem will be gone in W8P, and the tablets should guarantee that we'll see a lot more apps.

As to the camera, I think it's the software. That or the sensor itself. Here's what TheVerge.com had to say about it:

Quote

Nokia has a long history of packing terrific optics into its devices, so you would expect that the Lumia would excel in this area. I'm sad to report that it does not.

On the device I tested, the rear camera was capable of producing fine photos, though generally the 900 shot somewhat grainy and very washed out images. It's not that those images were particularly bad — they just weren't particularly good. Though the company touts Carl Zeiss optics, I didn't see anything in my results that belied fairly standard smartphone picture-taking capabilities. In fact, the camera software seemed to have real trouble in some settings, with white balance and exposure out of whack compared to my expectations.

Additionally, the Lumia 900 produces those dreaded, faint pink spots in the center of the display — particularly visible on bright white surfaces — that we've seen on countless phones. It's not the kind of thing you'd notice in most photos, but you can definitely see a discoloration that shouldn't be there.

Now keep in mind, my daily driver is a Galaxy Nexus, which has a relatively poor camera — so this is significant. I went into the Lumia 900 expecting an excellent photo experience, but it's really simply mediocre. That's too bad, because there aren't many phones on the market that can snap great looking photos, and given Microsoft's insistence that Windows Phone is a pro at quickly capturing important moments, this is a place where this phone could have shined.

Re: Apple or Android?

Posted 19 September 2012 - 01:59 PM

One thing that Nokia is really touting for the 920 is hardware image stabilization, which, if I'm not mistaken, is a first for cameras in phones (the rest use digital stabilization). Hell, the DSLRs my wife and I used for years (she's a professional photographer, and I second-shoot big stuff like weddings because it saves us boatloads of money) did't have on-board image stabilization, so we had to pay for it in the lenses. So Rudi, this could be the solution to your perpetual shake.

EDIT: I'm anxious to try this thing out now. I really thought the 8801 would be the last Nokia I ever owned.

Re: Apple or Android?

Posted 19 September 2012 - 02:23 PM

I'm honestly hoping to see their value rise after their first line of W8 phones. Their problem was they weren't really competing in the market for too long. I mean, what's the last good Nokia phone you remember? The N900? That was back in 2009. They had some other phones, but they were failing to compete in the American market at all.

So, the W7 phones helped a bit, but I really think W8 phones will take off, because of the whole "ecosystem". Phone, PC, Tablet, and XBox.

Re: Apple or Android?

Posted 19 September 2012 - 05:59 PM

POPULAR

Android, if only for the ease of connectivity and wide range of free apps and stuff you can do on it.

Typical Android scenario:

Droid1: Hey! I have this new amazing free app called PerfectViewer which reads manga!
Droid2: Whoa, that's cool! Too bad I don't have internet connection to download it now.
Droid1: Don't worry, with the help of this app called AppMonster, I can easily get the installer of this thing and bluetooth it to you!
Droid2: Hey, by the way do you have the photos when we went on vacation? Bluetooth that too!
Droid1: Sure no prob.
Droid2: High five!

Convert it to Apple scenario:

Apple1: Hey! I have this amazing free app from the app store!
Apple2: Sweet! What's it called? Ima download it right now because Apple users almost often have internet connectivity!Hey, by the way do you have the photos when we went on vacation?
Apple1: Yeah I have those, wait do you want me to add it to Facebook so you can download them all from there or something?
Apple2: Nah, let's head to your home and I'll just copy it from your Mac.
Apple1: High five!

Re: Apple or Android?

Ive used both---
APPLE is much nicer neat package but is very limited in its capabilities unless you pay for converting apps.
you also have to pay to get the apple dev kit

droid has a lot more potential and the apps you really need are free
free dev kit

You do realize that XCode is free, right?

Also, I hope you're not advocating that software developers should work for free. Apps need to be paid for in order for them to get paid.

Droid has more "potential" because it doesn't have the apps yet. Then again, some of the apps it does have are malware.

My iPhone does everything I want it to do (when it doesn't I look for reasonably priced — I avoid the free — apps on the app store) and it does them easily and smoothly. When I get more time I plan on getting into mobile development, and I see little reason to consider developing for Android. The money just isn't there. Sure, there may be more Android phones out there, but their users don't seem willing to pay for apps.

Re: Apple or Android?

True, if you want to be in business then you will have to pay the costs of doing business. I thought we were talking about writing code.

This smells like an "Android is open" claim. That's been debunked. Here's one example.

No, this is an "Apple imposes fees on developers" claim. I'm sure your link from daringfireball is lovely, but if it's about android, it's not really germane to the question of whether you have to buy crap from Apple in order to develop for the mePhone. You do, and phone developers reasonably refer to that as buying "the developer's kit" - a license to deploy to a test phone, access to important information, access to the market in which your product can be sold, access to the gatekeeper who decides whether your product can be allowed to profane the hallowed shelves of that market, and presumably a year's supply of smug, delivered in bulk, is included.

You want to argue about apple versus google? Fine, have fun. I've got no brief for either of them. If you want to bang the drum for Apple, that's your business, but don't ask me to suit up for google.

Re: Apple or Android?

Posted 19 September 2012 - 11:24 PM

i have a droid phone and an ipod touch and an ipad.

it must be really shitty to box yourself in and limit your own experiences. sure it's just a phone, but if you do it with something so meaningless i have a hard time believing that attitude doesn't leak into other areas of your life.

Re: Apple or Android?

True, if you want to be in business then you will have to pay the costs of doing business. I thought we were talking about writing code.

This smells like an "Android is open" claim. That's been debunked. Here's one example.

No, this is an "Apple imposes fees on developers" claim. I'm sure your link from daringfireball is lovely, but if it's about android, it's not really germane to the question of whether you have to buy crap from Apple in order to develop for the mePhone. You do, and phone developers reasonably refer to that as buying "the developer's kit" - a license to deploy to a test phone, access to important information, access to the market in which your product can be sold, access to the gatekeeper who decides whether your product can be allowed to profane the hallowed shelves of that market, and presumably a year's supply of smug, delivered in bulk, is included.

Given that there are still many more iOS developers than Android, it seems a safe bet that most consider $100/year on iOS more valuable than "free" on Android. The huge difference in profits bears that out, so using it as a negative for the iOS seems more than a little odd. I'd add that the "free" aspect is one thing that makes it easy to develop malware on Android. I don't see myself not wanting my money back (and money for my time/effort) if I need to install AV software on a phone.